and pull it out of this recession?
I would address our nation's problems with solutions. However, the general public would hate it. I would address our nation's problem with Global Labor Arbitrage, the concentration of wealth amongst a small percentage of the populace, our Malthusian problem, the money that we are wasting on unneeded excess higher education, and the money that we are wasting by keeping "consensual crimes" illegal.
In no particular order:
(1.)
Complete moratorium on all immigration-legal and illegal--except for instances where someone is in the top 1% of performers in their field. Also, deport all of the illegals.
This would remove the huge social welfare costs our nation suffers for health care, education, housing, and criminal justice costs that result from the importation of impoverished people into a nation that already has tens of millions of its own impoverished people. It would also open up jobs for Americans.
(2.) I would impose a
"Zero dollar trade deficit" policy on foreign goods and services. For every American dollar spent on foreign goods and services, people in other nations must purchase $1 worth of American goods. (In other words, end our trade deficit.)
(3.)
The job and wage-destroying H-1B and L-1 visa policies would be eliminated and all visa holders except those who are in the top 1% of their fields would have to leave the country, which would open up jobs for American college graduates. Any company that wants to employ someone who is not an American citizen must pay a $50,000/year tax for each such person. ($50,000 doesn't seem so horrible in order to have someone who has "irreplaceable" talent.)
These three policies, which combat Global Labor Arbitrage, would also combat the concentration of wealth amongst the top 5%.
(4.)
Raise taxes on the top 5% of Americans. Let's redistribute some of the wealth that was earned by the bottom 95% but that was improperly allocated to the top 5%.
(5.)
Enact policies to encourage poor people to use birth control and to not have more children than they can afford to take care of. Do you want welfare benefits and do you already have one child? You need to get sterilized. We'll pay crack mothers to get sterilized. This policy would reduce the amount of money spent to pay for children born into impoverished families and it would help combat our nation's Malthusian problem. (Basically, the higher your population, the fewer resources you have per capita which means higher prices for those resources--such as land for growing food and raising beef, land for lumber, etc.)
(6.)
End the costly and wasteful war on drugs by legalizing and producing drugs in this country. (Why should we send money to drug dealers and growers in other countries?) Also,
legalize prostitution. Then
tax all of it and use the tax money and the money saved on incarceration and on fighting the war on drugs to help people overcome drug addiction. (However, this might result in job losses amongst parasitic anti-drug law enforcement.)
(7.)
End the problem of our nation investing far more money in higher education than it needs. Where is the sense in producing 2x or 3x the number of college graduates than our nation's economy can employ or utilize properly? I would create a system that ties higher education funding to the actual results. Instead of paying tuition, graduates would pay a certain percentage of their earnings back to the college over their lifetimes (a "human capital contract"), restoring market forces to higher education.
(8.)
Invest in nuclear power and wind power. It's time to move beyond the outdated caveman means of generating power by burning stuff (which impose Global Warming and pollution costs).
(9.)
Stop spending so much money overseas to engage in nation-building. I wouldn't end the war on the Taliban and Al Queada, but it would be targeted military strikes and not wasteful nation-building. Also, reduce our expensive military footprint abroad and our foreign aid budget. It's time to stop being the world's policeman.
(10.)
Enact real Socialized Medicine. Our current system is wasteful and inefficient. Every other first world nation has some form of socialized medicine with 100% coverage, zero medical bankruptices, and businesses that aren't burdened by insurance concerns. Oh, they're also spending far less money than we are both in terms of % of GDP and in U.S. dollars. In contrast, our nation is spending 17% of it's GDP (compared to, say, 12%) while leaving tens of millions of Americans uninsured or under-insured and while suffering hundreds of thousands of medical cost bankruptcies every year while having a terrified populace and a business environment that's burdened with insurance concerns.